


What a Wild-Eyed Beast

by aboutbunnies



Category: E.R.
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:32:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1606925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aboutbunnies/pseuds/aboutbunnies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abby, Joe (and Luka, by default), and fallout. <i>Things don't so much blow up as just slowly crumble.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	What a Wild-Eyed Beast

Things don't so much blow up as just slowly crumble. The big things (Croatia, alcohol, Nico, Moretti) don't even seem to matter much, in the end – what matters is their complete inability to crawl from the rubble of their own doing and still want to hold each other, after.

(It is on both of them, this failure. Abby is neither arrogant enough nor angry enough, even, to believe otherwise.

She wishes she could be angry enough.)

She waits until he's back from Croatia to leave him, supposing it's the kinder of the options. He stands silently in the middle of their bedroom as she packs, and when she tosses clothing carelessly into her suitcase he takes it out again and folds each shirt carefully before repacking it. She watches his hands smooth the fabric; her breath catches and she suddenly wants to kiss him.

Of course, she doesn't.

As they leave the apartment, Joe calls for his father, indignant toddler tears hot against her neck.

Her heart shatters a little more.

\-----

There eventually emerges a routine, of sorts, as much as they've ever been able to establish one. Bless County, she thinks, for its nearly epidemic inability to stay fully staffed on any given day – because the nights Luka has Joe, it's easy enough to pick up extra graveyard shifts for the distraction, at least.

She pointedly ignores the gossip and the whispers and even the blatant questions (though there's certainly no blessing County for that). And when she can't ignore Hope's fifteenth offer of prayer for her marriage and her baby, she takes Neela to Ike's after their shift and watches her friend get pissed on her behalf.

Abby slams back Diet Cokes like she's keeping up with the tequila, and when it's time she gets Neela into a cab and goes home to Joe. The babysitter tells her he cried for Luka at bedtime. Again. And she's stone-cold sober, of course, so it hurts, _she_ hurts, for Joe and for herself, with no buffer for the sting.

(She's never been able to ask Luka if Joe calls for _her_ , the nights she doesn't have him; she doesn't know which answer would hurt more.)

She's placed photos of Luka all around Joe's bedroom in the new apartment, and she can almost feel him watching her as she lowers the crib side to pick up their son. The little boy is warm and heavy with sleep, almost a dead weight though he shifts as she settles him against her chest and runs her fingers through his hair, impossibly soft. And when he smacks his lips, a groggy mutter, she braces herself for more tears, more pleadings for someone she can't produce upon request, not anymore.

But she just hears barely a sigh, night-breath against her neck as she walks with him down the hall to her bedroom: “Mama.”

She feels the grief shift and kind of settle. She places Joe in the middle of her bed – he's already sound asleep again – and undresses quietly in the dark. When she joins him, drawing the blanket up and curling her body around his, little toes press against her belly and small fingers come up, unconsciously twisting around a strand of her hair.

“Yeah, baby, Mama's here,” she whispers, low and quiet into his ear. “You're okay, we're okay.”

A promise.

_fin_


End file.
